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With a number of costumed events on the horizon, it’s often tempting to try creating your own ensemble. One of the easiest ways to coordinate your trim to your dress is to use left over scraps from your gown. This is called Self Fabric trim, and was widely used during the Georgian or Rococo period, as shown in this extant gown:

Robe à la Polonaise with Self-Fabric Trim, circa 1775-80

Liz, at the Pragmatic Costumer, offers a fabulously easy tutorial for creating trim like that seen on the gown above. Her blog is a treasure trove of sewing hints and tricks for turning over the counter patterns into historically (appearing) accurate representations of your chosen time period. It’s lots of fun to explore.

Liz’s tutorial for making self fabric trim will have you embellishing your ensembles from head to toe (the technique also works for hat and bonnet trim, shoe roses, and more!)

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